[thelist] Please tell me why I hate Flash - longish

[Fortune Elkins]

hiya deke!

you know, i make both flash pages and .asp and static pages. why you choose
one has to do with your client's demographic, the desired site
functionality, etc. i don't think you can just dismiss flash out of hand,
although it is widely abused, even by some of its more famous proponents.

since flash in some form or another is nearly ubiquitous on consumer
machines and well-represented behind the corporate firewall, i feel the
download problems are overstated. you may disagree of course. <Grin> and
certainly almost all newer machines with newer browsers come with flash
pre-installed. but on those machines without flash, if people want the
info/infotainment, they will do the download, which is after all, quite
small and goes quickly even on 56 connections. i'm constantly surprised at
what people will download to see the singing frogs or whatever their best
friend emailed them about. <Grin> 

since the motown site was mentioned, let's talk about that. the client made
the decision that they had a flash demographic. the client knows to whom its
selling what. if i'm trying to sell music to teenage boys, you bet i'm gonna
ask the designer for an obnoxious flash site with all the cliches of blaring
techno music, anime-type cartoon art, small video clips of scantily clad
girls on skateboards, etc. (*not* that the motown site fits this
cliche....<Grin>)

i respect jakob n., but you can't as a designer sit on your cloud and tell
your clients that actually they are selling x and need to present it as y
because the usability experts said z. web usability experts don't drive the
client's overall marketing and ad campaign, right? the website is just a
small part of that and needs to fit in with that as much as the web's
technical limitations will allow; i think everyone still in business now
agrees with this. <Grin>god knows, if the client comes to you and says "i
want flash," you give them flash or your competitor will! it's not like
kioken twisted motown's arm and signed the check for motown! <Grin>

there are good reasons for using flash too. it does allow you to do some
sophisticated things in a very small amount of code; it is possible to make
attractive sites that download quickly. in general, i can make a flash page
that does more than a standard html page and which downloads in about 1/3
the time. also, now that flash 5 allows you to include external text files
with html, i can easily update content in my flash movie by just changing
the text file. finally, flash lets me escape from the stupid browser wars
and conflicting DOMs and poorly implemented standards. 

you say that flash 5 doesn't work on the latest devices shown at comdex, but
good lord, it seems like every device has its own browser, its own
implementation -- it makes dealing with the desktop browser wars look fun.
when i make a flash page i know it will run on every device that supports
flash in the same way, from the iPaq to the now-dead Audrey to the latest
desktop machine running whatever. what a relief! <Grin>

while the various usability experts fulminate against flash, i must say that
consumers are voting with their mice -- they do seem to *like* flash and
generator sites. *many people like* to see the widget whirl and hear the
music. some don't, but the vast majority appear to, and they email 'em all
around to each other. clients love that, when they hear sally emailed the
site URL to joe because "it's cute & fun."

flash is just a tool; it's appropriate for some things, and not for others.
but if those who pay the bills want the flash site, i'd inform them
objectively and coolly of what it takes, tell 'em i'd be happy to do it, and
then if they still want it, build it and take that cash. if the clients
truly seem clueless and turn to you for advice, then you have to go back and
ask, "who's your audience?" "what are you telling them?" they need to know
that before they make any kind of website, right?

finally, as my husband, a creative director in a big big big madison avenue
type place constantly sez: "nowadays, everything has unfortunately become
advertising. this makes the idea more important than ever. what are you
communicating and to whom?" i think many websites fail not because they
don't have proper usage of ALT, but because they aren't saying anything to
anyone, or worse, they are just talking to themselves. and this is my final
condemnation of most flash sites: they *are* just talking to themselves.

jes' my 2 rupees,

f



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